Windows 8 Tip: Use Windows 7 System Image Backup

As the foundation for your mobile computing future, Windows 8 provides next generation recovery tools, Push Button Reset for OS reinstalls, and File History for document versioning. But these utilities make many PC users and enthusiasts nervous. If only there was a way to use the system image backup capabilities from Windows 7 in Windows 8.

Good news: There is.

Unsurprisingly, however, Microsoft has made this functionality hard to find. In Windows 7, you could simply search for and launch Windows Backup, and you’d be up and running with a complete, system image-based backup that you could use later to restore the entire PC.

In Windows 8, Windows Backup is hard to find. Search for backup and you’ll find only File History, for example. But it’s there: Search for recovery instead.

And in the search results, under Settings, choose the renamed Windows 7 File Recovery. The control panel that launches, which, yes, is now called Windows 7 File Recovery, used to be called Backup and Restore in Windows 7. And as with its predecessor, this control panel is the front-end for Windows Backup, which provides that system image backup capability.

Windows 7 File Recovery is in Windows 8 primarily so that upgraders can access the files contained in backups previously made in Windows 7. But there’s no reason you can’t use this to make new system image backups in Windows 8. It works exactly as before: Just click Set up backup and get started.

Note that you’ll probably also want to create a system repair disk, which can be used to boot your PC and restore it using the system image backup you’re now creating, in the event of a hard drive issue or other hardware failure. I wrote about that process in Windows 8 Tip: Create Recovery Media. The recovery process has indeed changed in Windows 8, but it’s straightforward and, if anything, nicer than it was in Windows 7 … even if you use system image backups.

Discuss this Article 16

I'm not keen on the deprecation of Windows 7 Backup. Backups are an area where either the software should be kept up to date and compatible, or be eliminated entirely. (Read-only access would be an exception.)

That Windows 7 Backup is no longer getting updates in Windows 8 is fine in and of itself, given that it currently works. However the OS around it will continue to be updated, and incompatabilities that creep in could, in principle, create a situation where the user suffers data loss without any advance warning. For example even if it continues to save data correctly, if it loses the ability to restore said data the user will not become aware of the problem until they attempt to use the backup, at which point every other copy has usually been eaten by the dog.

So, I won't be using it. Image Backup is cute if you have to swap out a drive but it turns out (after a PC migration) that I only have about two dozen apps installed, so I can do things the hard way. The File and Folder backup has always been painfully slow, especially on older hardware. It takes an age and a lot of CPU grunt to make all those 200MB ZIP files.

I used the "File and Folder" backup on Win 7 for a while. One day I decided I was tired of not being able to see what was in those zip files, so I "restored" to an ntfs partition on the backup hard drive and discovered what a disaster it was. (Yes, I had to create an ntfs partition just to do this.) The disaster part is that all my careful curating of files was lost. Everything I deleted was back! Unbelievable! I wouldn't even had noticed, except that Security Essentials again caught a file it had caught previously and which I had deleted. So I went back to using the fast, accurate, and checkable Synctoy.

I am not sure I understand what you expected to happen. It's a backup system, not a mirror of one of your drives. One of the things it is meant to do is retain copies of files that you have deleted or modified in case you want to restore them.

I deleted them for a reason. I don't want them anymore. Period. And when I restore the backup I certainly don't want to go through all my files to delete the ones I had already deleted. (If I do delete something by mistake, that's what the recycle bin is for.)

I think Paul outlined it pretty well above: it's no longer a supported feature of the OS. It's included so that people who used it on Windows 7 can continue to use it. If you have gone straight to Windows 8 and have never used Windows 7's backup features, you're supposed to move straight on to File History and never touch it.

I have Windows 8 preinstalled on my Asus UX32VD and am constantly getting error when I am trying to back up using the option "Create System Image". The error is "The Backup failed. There is no enough space ....(0x80780119). I tried in vain with various options found online, starting the following too did not work:
Block level back up engine
Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider
Volume shadow copy
Virtual disk
Windows backup

Same problem here also with an Asus (X202E). Called Asus tech support and he confirmed others having same problem. He suggested doing a complete reset/restore which is going on now but is VERY slow (been going 2 1/2 hours now and only 20% complete). It's going back if I can't get Create system image working.

When using system image option in Win 8 Pro, I'm getting an error message that my target need to formatted NTFS: it is.
I tried using three different USB HDs as targets, all got the same error message.
FWIW, my HD is 250GB/210GB used, the USB drives are 320GB/320GB free, and two 1TB, >600GB free.

I know this is an old topic, but I have a question. A few months ago, my motherboard died on my windows 7 machine, but before I figured that out, I thought it was the hard drive. Long story short, the original hard drive is gone, the only back up it have is a system image on an external drive, and I need some of those files. If I buy a machine with windows 8 on it, will I be able to use the windows 7 system restore feature to get my old computer back? I read on another forum that the backup would just overwrite windows 8, but that's the only evidence I have and I'm a bit weary. Any help would be appreciated.

I've made windows 7 system image on my old hp probook. I have also new Asus k56c with win8 on it. Can I use image backup in Asus to load win7 and everything which i had on my probook? I want to have my old system and files and aplications in my new laptop. Is that possible?